


Leaving Home

by TheStoryOf14



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Discovery, Family, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-10
Updated: 2013-10-10
Packaged: 2017-12-29 00:34:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 11,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/998749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheStoryOf14/pseuds/TheStoryOf14
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After they leave their home, the Dursleys are forced to live with wizards. At first the situation is mutually detested. However, as time passes the Dursleys and the wizards start to talk, and find out how life's been on either side of Harry Potter's life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Leaving Home

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own any characters created by J.K. Rowling. Full credit goes to her for all situations and information mentioned in any of the 7 books or interviews, etc. as well. However, the storyline of this fanfic is all me and the little voice in my head – and thus, of course, not to be copied by anybody else – that would be stealing my creativity, my ideas – and not very nice

**Petunia's point of view**

I couldn't believe it. After 21 years of living in this house, our house, we had to leave it. Just like that. And there wasn't a chance that we could move back, when this was all over – if it ever would be over. Well, apparently, it all depended on the little brat, so I didn't think the stakes were high. But still, I would miss this place. It was where we had gone to live as soon as we had gotten married. It was were we raised Dursley, where he said his first words, ... It was the place where I received the news that my sister had died. It even was the place where that little brat of a son of hers had been given into our keeping.

I guess that was the only good thing about it, we wouldn't have to look after him anymore. He wouldn't ever put my little boy in danger again. He wouldn't ever get the attention of the whole neighbourhood on our house anymore. And we wouldn't have to lie about everything concerning him anymore. Not that many people wondered, or asked, of course… And who could blame them? Even when they didn't know how much of a… How much of a freak he really was, they could still sense something strange about him. I knew I had been right, anyone normal could sense it. His kind of people just couldn't be trusted.

And still… I felt, somehow, sad at the thought of not seeing him again… After all, he was the only thing that still connected me with – no, not my sister, not her. But my parents… Even though they were always so proud of perfect little missy witch, I knew they were just as proud of me, of us, when we got married, when Vernon got promoted, … I guess they were lucky to have died shortly before my little sister and that husband of hers got themselves killed. But that also meant I didn't have anybody of my family left. Of course, there was Vernon's family, but somehow Marjorie and his parents have never come to feel as my family… The more as they always made it very clear that Vernon could have ended up with anybody he wanted, and that I was to feel ever so grateful that he, instead, chose me… After all, I was nothing but a poor girl, with no decent education, not a lot of money, and not even a remarkable family to make up for all those flaws on my side.

Oh, I wasn't to think like this, it was just the stress of moving, going on the run, that made me feel those things. I mean, I basically had to decide which of our belongings, our memories, were important enough to take with us… How could that not put a lot of pressure on someone? It's a whole part of our life's we were forced to leave behind, and such a situation is bound to make one remember the old times…

"Oi, you!" I heard Vernon yell. What had that boy done this time? Just like him, to be nothing but trouble, even on the day we would say goodbye. Just like him, to be happy at the thought of never having to see us again, and that after all we'd done for him. Ungracious git! Vernon was still yelling for the boy to come down, not a bit of respect. Ah, finally, the boy had decided to grace us with his presence... And now Vernon was talking about... Oh no, he'd changed his mind again... I couldn't blame my Vernon for distrusting the boy - he had never given us any reason to trust him after all – but even I knew it was unlikely that this was nothing but a plot to get our house, he told us that he already owned a house in... London? And now the boy was telling Vernon off – he reminded me of my sister somehow, trying to get her own way again – how dare he set that tone to us – but Vernon already waved me off. And now the boy was rambling on again, something about the good memories? How dared he, after all we'd gone through – giving him Dudley's second room, feeding him, clothing him, ... Unbelievable, the nerve of that litt–. "Are there, are there more?" my little Dudley asked. I realized they had moved on to the who's and what's again, so apparently we were leaving. And now Duddykins said he would go with those order-folks. I realized, and saw that so did the boy, it was settled then. I would never let Dudley on his own, whether he chose to go with that kind of people, or chose to stay. So go we would. While the boy went back upstairs, I continued to look through our stuff, replacing some photo's from 3 years ago with those from this summer. What a man Dudley had grown to be, he truly was his father's son, and-

Somehow I must've missed the bell, because next thing I knew there were two wizards in my kitchen, making theirselves comfortable. And the way they talked to the boy, as if he was something special – special enough to get his parents killed, yes. That would probably be the most 'special' thing he had ever done... And now they were babbling about getting him away, seriously, what was it with all these people treating him like he was something special? No wonder the brat never showed any respect for anyone or anything, with these people giving him an even bigger head than he already had... Then, suddenly, a screaching voice came out of the pocket of the little man – what in the name of... A watch? Screaming? How for the love of – Finally, we were ready to leave. Oh well, last goodbyes, so sad, see you later, ... And now they thought we needed some privacy? Honestly, we had nothing to hide, we were honest people, and it's not as if this was such a sad moment... There, Vernon said the goodbye's for all of us, so we could go now. Last time in our kitchen, last time in our living room, ...

But while I was checking something on my purse -no need to make these goodbye's longer than they -need to be, I heard Dudley mutter: "I don't get it" As I asked him what he didn't get, I noticed he was watching the boy, looking almost... Worried? About the boy? Oh, what a wonderful, openminded man my Dudleykins had grown up to be... As I listened to the conversation unfolding -of course those freaks would make it sound like they were better than us- I noticed how different the exchange between my son and nephew was. Now that I came to think of it, Dudley hadn't complained nearly as much as usual about the boy these last weeks. Even in the way they were talking just now, there appeared to be some sort of understanding as my son thanked him. Dudley truly was a magnificent young man – a bit overwhelmed, I burst into tears, and walked over to my boy, giving him a hug he'd truly deserved, yet feeling slightly guilty that I had never thanked the boy – he had after all saved Dudley's life. I wasn't stupid, I still remembered what my sister had said about those things, those Dementors. They did something to you that was worse than dying – and it was really only thanks to the boy that my son still had his soul. As I struggled to find the words to speak a long overdue 'thank you', I watched the boys say goodbye. Still looking for the correct words, the words that would mean something after 16 years of nothing, I said goodbye. With this thank you on my lips, I saw him watching me, as if he knew what I was thinking. Suddenly I was reminded that he was indeed my nephew, that he was my babysister's son. And through his eyes, I could feel Lily looking at me, only showing disappointement, no anger, no resentment. That just made it worse to bare. Without saying anything, I turned around, and left my house, my old life, and Harry behind.


	2. On The Road

**Dudley's point of view**

_5 hours later_

It was official – mum and dad had gone crazy. Even more crazy than they usually were. And because 'usually' meant dad breaking stuff – possibly humans – and mum yelling a lot, I wasn't really comfortable sitting in the same car as them at the moment. The two wizards, however, seemed to think the way mum and dad acted was rather funny – I guess they hadn't ever seen what my dad could do when he got really mad – I mean: besides creating enough noise to make the windows shatter. Mum could really yell, but when dad started belting through it – I had more than once found myself checking just to make sure I could still hear - and I usually wasn't even in the room they were using for their lungtraining.

It was, luckily, more often than not, pretty easy to notice it coming: mum would get very careful about not dropping something expensive, all the while obviously checking on our neighbours – in case one of them did something illegal, possibly dangerous or in any way undecent. Dad was something different: his mind was pretty one-sided, so when he got mad, he got mad – at the plants, the stairs, his jacket, the neighbours, the government, the environment, the law, the lack of enforcing said law, the world, Harry, Harry, Harry, Harry, … And because Harry was the only one who would cross his eyesight, Harry would also be the only one to get the full thing – yelling, threatening, throwing heavy stuff in his general direction, … And then, when dad would really get to the full extend of his rage, and Harry would still manage to stay calm (and often somehow even manage to outsmart him) he'd get to the point where he lost control – and that would be your cue to duck it, if you intended on having a straight nose, or being able to see with both eyes. If that wasn't your intention, you could always join Harry, who often still managed to stare dad down. Certainly the last couple of summers. I didn't know what this school he was going to had done, but it really had given him a lot of courage, to say the least. And apparently a whole lot of friends too, if the amount of owls he often got meant anything at all.

Besides that, it was also clear that he had made some very powerful contacts – if you could have the prime minister's 'bodyguard' at your personal service whenever you felt like it… Although, considering his reaction when we were leaving, he didn't really look like he was so fond of being protected. And I wasn't even all too sure if he really needed that protection – after the way he'd helped me two years ago, I thought he probably woud've ended up protecting his protectors or something… Now thàt I would've liked to see.

\- - -

_4 hours later_

How long had we been in this car? It seemed we were just driving without a goal, the small wizard more than once almost giving mum a heartattack, because he'd only told dad to turn in somewhere about a second before we would've passed that street… Dad was bound to just love this, too. I could practically see him trying to come up with a remark smart enough to make the wizard rethink being so reckless… Oh well, I guessed I still had a couple of hours before he would finally manage to either let it go, or come up with something so pathetic the wizard wouldn't know what to reply - and knowing dad, he'd take that as a 'you won' and be happy about it. Sometimes I really wondered if dad actually was that dumb, or just chose to ignore his own failures? Not that it mattered – either way, peace would be somewhat restored.

All the while, we kept on driving. Slowly, our suroundings became wilder and there were less and less villages to offer another view than the endless road ahead of us. Suddenly I noticed a nameplake – but what the hell were we doing in Scotland? They said we were probably going to go abroad – and the look on dad's face when he realised they didn't even know where they were going for sure yet was just priceless. I thought for a second he was going to choke. But funny as that was, weren't we supposed to be on the run, instead of visiting the Loch Ness monster? However, rather than going to the lake, we ended up in some kind of really, really big forest. I mean, seriously, we drove for hours and hours without ever seeing so much as a glimps of something other than trees and a flash of water (lakes perhaps?) now and then. I didn't even remember how long we'd already been on the road by now. It had gone dark long before we even entered these woods, and it seemed as if we'd been in here forever. Were they planning on getting to the very centre of it or something? After a while, dad even had to leave the road and force our car through the trees. The look on his face when he realised there was a serious chance he would get some unremovable scratches on his car: beyond priceless. I'm still surprised he managed to hold it together – but when he noticed the little wizard next to him was playing with his wand, looking at it with a smile, he seemed to try to just focus on the (lack of) road for some reason.

I didn't really blame the wizard for doing so, dad knew very well what he wanted, but he often seemed to lack a bit of…. common sense – or a brain. For example, he never knew when it really was better to just shut up and take orders – or just: how to take orders, final ending. I knew he would take the wizard holding his wand out in the open as a threat, but really, who could blame the guy for making it clear who was in charge? And anyway, even with all mum and dad had always said about wizards being nothing but freaks, all of them a threat for good, normal people like us, and only thinking of ways to use everything and everybody to become rich, to become powerful, … Harry had proven them both wrong, over two years ago – he won nothing from saving me, only a chance of being beaten up a couple of times extra. And yet he still did it… I don't think I would've done the same – in fact, I know I wouldn't have. And there wasn't a single one of all of my friends who would've done that either – even being friends, let alone being the bullied.

I really was thankful for what he had done for me – but saying that out loud, however, that was something completely different. I mean, I'd hated him for 14 years – and the last thing I remembered before everything went wrong, was him pulling his wand at me. And anyway, by the time I got out of that feeling of… darkness – he was already gone. And with him gone off to wherever he went every summer, it really was easy to try to ignore what exactly had happened that night. Or at least, it would've been – if it didn't keep coming back to me, every time I went to bed. Only a couple of days after he'd gone off, back to his world, I guess, I began to dream about those things. How they slowly crept up on me... And all I could think was: he did it, he's just picking on me, he's just being a freak, he's – and then I felt him near me, and I punched him, wanting to make it stop. But it didn't stop – it just became worse, colder, the freezing feeling making it's way into my chest. And back then I thought I'd heard voices, but I couldn't remember what they'd said, I couldn't bring it back to me.

And usually, that was when the dream stopped, and I woke up, still feeling that cold inside of me, thinking I would be sick again. But not always, sometimes I heard the voices become clearer, screaming, yelling at me to stop, telling me I was doing this, it was my own doing, it was me, me, all me… And they kept on yelling at me, blaming me, and everytime I thought I recognized a voice, it shifted to somebody else I thought I knew – but I'd never really even spoken to them, I'd only heard them yell, the same way they were yelling now, only not angry, but begging – to stop it, to let them off, to move on to someone else. Those were the nights I woke up because mum was standing next to my bed, asking me what was wrong, why I was shouting in my sleep, shouting out the names of children from our street, from primary school, from our neighbourhood, … Those were the nights I realised that those voices weren't just my imagination, but that they were real, very real. Those were the nights I heard the people I had beaten, chased, bullied, taken their money from, … Those were the nights I wondered why, why in God's name had Harry saved me – because I knew very well he wasn't the one who had done that to me, he was the one who'd saved me from it.

My mum knew it too – a couple of days later, after Harry'd gone away, and those dreams had begun, she'd explained to me what those things were. She told me they brought out the worst memories inside of you, made you relive them, until you couldn't feel happiness anymore. She told me that what Harry'd saved me from wasn't death – she told me I probably would've been better off if I had been killed than if they'd had the chance to do what they like to do most. And she never said it out loud, but I knew she thought it too: it was almost a miracle, to have been saved from it – and we never could, never should, never would thank him, because of who, because of what he was. And she didn't necessarily like it, but she was used to it. I don't think she ever even really considered thanking him – he'd saved me, yes, but that was that, it was done, not to be mentioned again, past perfect. She didn't really consider it anything out of the ordinary – she and dad had taken him in, fed him, clothed him, … She probably thought he was just paying back a small amount of all that he owned them. I would've thougt the same thing, probably, if it hadn't been me he'd saved – and if I hadn't known just how little reason he'd had to do anything to save me – even if my parents really had done that much for him.

I've never gotten the best marks at school, I've always had better things to do than read books – it's like dad says: he's never studied, and he still managed to become a major person, thé major person in his company. So perhaps I wasn't one of the smartest, not one of the talkers – whatever. But I wasn't stupid either. I knew exactly what had happened. He'd saved my life – the boy I'd punched, humiliated, made fun off, made an open goal to anyone who wanted to work out their frustrations on something alive, made a disease you didn't want to catch to anyone who talked to him or wanted to befriend him, the boy whose life I'd personally made sure was as miserable as possible – because it wasn't like he deserved any better, was it? He had saved my life. And what he'd saved me from, showed me exactly how little reason he had to save me.


	3. On The Road... Still

**Vernon's point of view**

Why.  
Were.  
We.  
Still.  
Driving?  
Weren't wizards supposed to be able to do this little thing called magic? Really, if they were planning on using magic to make sure we'd be safe from the trouble their lot caused, they might take us through this goddamn forest a bit faster or something – or did they expand it? Seriously – when I was a child, I'd been in this forest, and it was NOT THIS BIG! My parents, Marge and me camped in it for 3 weeks, and we'd seen every treefilled, human society-lacking, bug-nested part of it! Actually, I thought they might've been taking us in circles. Let me guess, they were trying to… Avoid an enemy? Make trackers loose our trail? Of course – in their weird, little, creepy minds they were. I knew it, I knew we shouldn't have come with them!

I bet they were just having a blast now, laughing us, mocking us, in our own home none the less! "Oh look, Potter, your uncle and aunt really are as stupid as you told us – now, which part shall we sell first? The china? The furniture? Or are we just going to put the whole thing on the market?" Those bloody FREAKS! And now they were leading us in here – threatening to hex us unless we did exactly what they decided on. This was kidnapping – we had agreed to go into hiding, not to be led around the whole of England and on, just so that we could serve for their personal entertainment!

And you know what I would like to know? What they did to Dudley. He was a real man – not some pussy who went around apoligizing to people like that. And okay, that boy might have saved him – but if it hadn't been for him, we would've never been in this whole mess, none of it!

I'd said it before, and I would say it again: we never should've taken that little brat in our house. Nothing but trouble, that's all he's ever been: running aroud in clothes we had given him, eating the foot we had bought him, going to the school we had paid for – and what did he give us in return? Nothing but trouble, he did! And I knew it would happen! I said it to Petunia, on the very morning she found him on the doorstep - there was absolutely no reason whatsoever to keep him. He wasn't even true family. It's not like she and her sister ever spoke to eachother – the boy was over a year old, and we'd managed to never even have seen him – and then those two idiots had to go get themselves killed – freaks.

Oh, I knew she had had the misfortune of being stuck with a sister like that before we married – my Petunia of course had the decency to tell me about this, a fair warning was something she knew I would be able to appreciate. But still – she had absolutely no intention of speaking to the other woman ever again. That prooved to me that my Petunia truly was a woman of understanding, and good insights. No one normal would ever want to be, remotedly as it may be, connected to one of that kind. Of course I didn't hold it against her, it's not like she could help it, just a cruel trick of nature, but I hadn't counted on the breeding of her sister being trown at us.

I have to confess, I did consider just leaving, bailing out of this deal I'd never signed up for. But divorce is not something I personally aprove of. A marriage is for life and beyond – just like we vowed. And furthermore: what would Dudley do without his mother? The boy needed someone to look after him, to buy clothes for him, to help him with his work for school, in short: to be his mum. And somehow, Petunia couldn't bring herself to just leave the boy – she didn't owe her sister a thing of course, but I think she saw him as some last reminiscent of her parents. Never really got along with those folks, but they had managed to bring up Petunia to who she is now (although I did help her to get her ideas, political ànd ideological, straight), so I guessed they probably had done something right somehow. Either way, didn't matter anymore: we would never have to see that boy take advantage of us anymore – that is: if we ever got out of here alive… And I didn't like that gleamy look on the little wizards face all that much, so I wasn't very sure about that…

Really, I didn't know how I could've been so stupid as to believe that they were talking the truth – a dark wizard after the boy? Why would he? That freak was absolutely nothing special, so certainly not enough for some mad wizard of sorts to go after him – and the ministery trying to protect him? Yeah right, more like he was the treath to the ministry probably… And seriously, why were we still driving?

Oh, great. The tiny guy was telling us to stop – what were we supposed to do now? Do a stupid dance and hope for a miracle? Or would they kick us out and take our car too? Either way – no way I was going to work along. They got us here, they would get us out of these goddamn woods – alive, without anything missing, and  
With.  
My.  
Car.

Oh, so now we were going to take a break, have a nice chat, get to know each other, hmm? Were they really that stupid? We wanted nothing, I repeat Nothing to do with them. The only reason we were here was so that we could actually have our life to NOT know them – and really, they only got the point that we'd been driving for over 20 hours just now? Idiots. And did they have anything to eat? Oh no, of course they didn't, just waiting to take advantage of us again, weren't they? And why would they need the rest, really? Neither of them had done anything yet – nothing at all. I had been driving, I'd have thought they would at least have considered that – bring some food, a drink, anything… Okay, so I was supposed to leave my car behind? Hmpf, good luck to them to get it out of here, now that was a very happy thought, imagining that little guy trying to even reach the gass pedal – that I would like to see!

Now, as they were busy taking our trunks out of the car, apparently we were going somewhere. They didn't really mean to stay here, in the woods did they? As if! We, stay in here? How was Dudley supposed to find out what his friends were up to? How were Petunia and I going to know if that neighbour of ours finally cut that ugly, bushy thing into some decent form?

…

Oh

my

wow

What did I just hear? We were going to travel to somewhere far away, by a magic object that could transport us there. And then we were going to disappear to somewhere else. And then we were going to stay there?  
We had ended up in the middle of some rotten fairytale. Did they seriously expect us to just…  
Do all that? Seriously? What on earth were they playing at? They would be able to take us anywhere! And make us believe we were somewhere completely else! How were we supposed to go back? Were we going to have to pay for airplanetickets afterwards? What –

And now they're getting out a – comb? That was it? That was that so called "magical object" that was supposed to take us all across the world? What else did they have on them? A mirror that could show you the dead? A hat that could talk? A football that could fly? It was now official:they were absolutely, completely, utterly NUTS. But really – what did we have to loose? They already had our house, our car, we were in a forest somewhere in the middle of nowhere ànd they had their wooden toys on them – so I guessed I might as well grab on the comb, at least we would finally get away from these awfull woods. I had only just done so, when suddenly a blue gleam seemed to come over it, and before I knew it, I felt the most dreadfull physical experience – and suddenly we were on some beach or something. Before any of us had the time to take a good look around, the two wizards grabbed our sleeves, and there was a weird pull at my stomach. And then I fell down on some sort of muddy place. While I was trying to swipe the dirt off my face, I tried to see where we were, but all I could see was –

Oh great

Another bloody wood.


	4. At The Ministry

**Percy's Point of View**

-Page 9/47 – Nothing-

This was utter madness. How were we supposed to do anything, whatsoever, with all these patrolls going around all of the time? Did they expect us to just ignore them? Because that really was quite difficult when they were yelling at people constantly and seemed to think that every leef of paper was the start for an uproar – there were clarcks in here, what were they supposed to do if they weren't allowed paper? Just learn everything by heart, and then go around telling it to everyone who needed the info? And really, who would be so dumb as to plot an uproar while on the ministry, write the plans down on minsterial paper, when everybody knew those were automatically copied to the archives and do it now, of all times, when everybody's life was already on the edge as it was?

Really, you could accuse those deatheaters of a lot – but being smart, certainly wasn't one of them.

I still couldn't believe it had only been 2 days since they took over. I had the dumb luck that I had gotten a day of for Bill's wedding. I wasn't about to go to it, even if maybe I did want to – the twins would've hexed me into the next century, and I didn't even want to think about what Ginny would've done. But somehow, after what happened the night before, Scrimgeour thought it would be a good idea for me to try to… But anyway, I had heard the rumours. And really, it was kind of obvious. An overnight change of course, that drastically, these days? It just reeked of a certain mastermind…

-Page 19/47 - Nothing-

And then yesterday, anyone who was even remotely connected to the ministry was ordered to defend themselves to any allegations that might or might not have been true. And of course they had to do it in alphabethical order – so I had the pleasure of watching dad leave, just as I was about to enter. That look on his face – it was as if he had seen the worst things he could possibly imagine. And I knew Harry and Hermione were at the wedding, so I guessed, perhaps, he really was just worried. That, or they had about 10 dementors in there. But when I entered, there was only one, circling around madame Umbridge. She knew, of course, that I hadn't spoken to my family for over 2 years, so perhaps she saw me as somewhat less of a risk, because it was too cold in there for just one dementor. She just asked the basic questions…

"Name?"

"Percy Weasley"

"Current adress?"

"London, -Alley 103"

"Current occupation?"

"Junior Undersecretary to the Head of the Departement for Magical Law Reinforcement"

"Previous occupations, at the Ministery or elsewhere?"

"1 year at the Departement of International Magical Cooperation under Barty Crouch, 1 year as Junior Assistant to the Minister of Magic, at the time minister Fudge, at the same time often working as a scribe in matters where it was required. A little over a yeas ago I was transferred to my current position."

"Three different jobs in… Three years. Why?"

"By the end of my first year at the Departement for Magical Law Reinforcement, Mister Crouch had died, and Minister Fudge thought I would do well as his Junior Assistant. After another year Minister Fudge had to step back, and Minister Scrimgeour decided he would prefer his old Assistant, so I was transferred to the Departement for Magical Law Reinforcement."

"And now their is a new Minister of Magic. Have you got any thoughts on this?"

"No Madam, my job is not directly linked to the minister, and it has not been long enough to notice any particular changes, for the better or the worse."

"I see. Do your co-workers agree with you on this?"

"I don't know Madam."

"Explain?"

"We do not talk that much, most of us prefer to do our job peacefully, by ourselves."

"Now, in times as these we have to be carefull. Have you noticed anything strange at anybody's behaviour lately?"

"No Madam."

"Now, you say don't talk about it. But did you perhaps, by chance, hear anybody say anything about the current tide?"

"No Madam."

"Fine, very well. Now, one last question: you are the son of Arthur Weasley, ministry employe?"

"Indeed Madam"

"However, you do not seem to interact much, or at all?"

"No Madam"

"Why is this?"

"I'm afraid I do not see how this is relevant, Madam?"

"Boy, in times like these it is important we know who works for us and what their background is. Now tell me, why do you not?"

"About two years ago, we had a disagreement. I decided I wanted to follow the Ministry before anything else, they decided… Otherwise. We have not been on speaking terms since."

"I see. Dismissed – NEXT!"

-Page 23/47 – Nothing-

When I had gotten the job as Junior Assistant, being nice to madame Umbridge was basically included in the job. And back then, I really thought she was right, that we couldn't just have people trying to get more attention by spreading rumours, panic and lies. But then, of course, it turned out those people were actually telling the truth – and so were my parents, my brothers, my sister, and basically everyone I had turned my back too. But by that time, I liked my position too much. And I had gotten used to being the other Weasley long before I graduated. So I just didn't bother anymore. The chance that they would still want to talk to me was remotely small anyway. So I didn't try to make things right –I just stopped trying to make them worse.

And I realized that – if they were right – dangerous times were coming. And the ministry would offer as good a chance to survive as anything else. So I still didn't talk, nod, smile to my dad, I still followed the minister, I still acted respectful to Umbridge. But I also listened a lot. All I could find out, without being too obvious, about my family, the war, what was really going on, I listened to. And I tried to remember. Just in case. In case one day, people would start to fight back. People would start to admit that they had to do something as well, not just rely on a teenager. And when that day came, I hoped I would be there, I hoped I would be able to be there. And most of all: I hoped I would have the guts to be there.

-Page 35/47 - Nothing-

Today everything was supposedly just as it always used to be, normal old life. I just thought it was funny that, apparently, it was also normal to be spying on everyone around you, not knowing who might say what about you to whom. And what would be the consequences of it. Everybody knew it: if you stepped so much as one toe out of line, someone was going to tell on you. To get a favor of their own, because they didn't like you, because they wanted your position, anything. Or just, because, they could, so why not do it.

My job description had changed slightly. When Fudge still held the power, I just did what he asked me to do, whether that be getting him a drink, taking over some of his paperwork, or just take notes. Then Fudge had to step down, and Scrimgeour decided that the ministery didn't need a Juniorsecretary as much as they needed more people trying to find out who went where. So I was Juniorsecretary to the head of Magical Lawenforcement, and I got the wonderful job to check whether anybody had apparated when they weren't (yet) supposed to, or whether anybody had hacked a Portkey, or… It really was quite dull. Just look over documents all day long, trying to find something that wasn't there, but should've been, or was there, but shouldn't be. Nine days out of ten, nothing happened. And so far this seemed to be just such a day. Unsatisfying, counting down the hours before I could go home, to my empty house. To think about the next day, which would be exactly the same.

-Page 46/47 –

"Unauthorized Portkey - Forest of Dean to *Censorized*  
Authorized Apparation - *Censorized* to *Censorized*"

"Excuse me – Madam? I think I've got something."


	5. A New Place To Stay

**Dudley's Point Of View**

Wow.

This was a lot more sunny than that last gloomy place - or whatever that was, inbetween being kicked in the gutter 2 times.

-What was that by the way?-

The wizards seemed to think it was fairly normal, so I reckoned it was an ordinary way of transport for them. I guess it could come in handy – but I honestly did not know how any of them could ever get used to that.

I wondered if Harry knew how to do that. If he did, then why didn't he ever use it? I couldn't see him staying all the time because he felt like it. And the only times the food was worth staying for, was when he would cook. I shuddered as I recollected the last stew mum had managed to produce – even though she used Harry's recipe, she managed to make it taste the same as her fish carbonade – quite disgusting to be honest.

Where did Harry go to? If anything, I would miss his cooking – knowing there was usually a decent to excellent meal waiting at home did make a definite upside to having him at home during the summer. It's not like he had anything else to do during the summer – he just sat there occupying my room for a month, and then sort of left to who knows where.

Really.

Why did he leave every summer?

Did he just want to leave?

Did he have to go do something?

Anything?

Did he ever consider not leaving?

Having a summer with us?

Did he ever just consider it?

Not leaving – but where did he leave to?

What did he do after he had left?

Who did he meet?

What plans did he have before having left?

Did he consider it a possibility to stay for the entire summer?

Did he ever want to spend his birthday with actual family?

Did he consider us family?

Did he think of me as his nephew?

Or his bully?

Did he ever wonder what would've happened if his parents wouldn't have died?

Did he realise that I knew nothing more about half of my family than he did before his eleventh birthday?

Did he realise I knew what day that birthday was, even if I never congratulated him?

Why hadn't I ever congratulated him?

And why didn't I already know all of this?

\- - -

**Petunia's Point Of View**

Finally.

Something that resembled society again.

-Resembled.-

Although very remotely.

Where were we?

Where were we going?

What were we going to do for the coming weeks, months, years (please no!)?

What did they think of us?

Were we going to be stuck with these two wizards for the whole while?

What did they know of us, of how we treated there precious Harry?

Would they ask us something, perhaps about that?

Could we ask them questions?

Would we ask them those which we wanted answered?

Would I?

\- - -

**Vernon's Point Of View**

What the hell was going on?

Why didn't my wife and son say anything?

Why didn't I?

Why were they making us walk again when they'd just shown us that they had other - measures of transportation?

And what the hell was going on?


	6. Guarding/Protecting

**Hestia's Point of View**

I honestly couldn't believe these people.  
They had a boy given to them, trusted to their keeping, and they wanted nothing to do with him.  
Suddenly the situation from 2 years earlier made a lot more sence - who would just leave their nephew for a family trip?  
And to think I'd once believed the stories about this boy - no,  _man_.  
But as much as I'd realized that he wasn't the spoiled little kid that some of the stories made him out to be, I now realized that wasn't anything like the loved, cared for, wel thaught, well informed man people thought he was, either.  
I actually began to wonder what these people had done to him over their summers together - and asked myself why I never noticed how terribly scrawny he was until I saw him next to his family.

Although -  _family_?  
These 3 looked like a family, all the same in the way they seemed to not want to know about anything they did not already know.  
Harry Potter, however, looked as much out of place in their house as he did in the middle of the attention when we were to get him to Grimauld Place safely.  
And I just couldn't,  _could not_ , understand how they could not see what kind of a man, a treasure to our community, they had in their midst.  
Nor did I know why they didn't seem to know anything about him, about us, about our battle either.  
Or why a simple thank you was considered an expression of love - Honestly, what was  _wrong_  with those people?

But all that would have to wait.  
Right now, they had to be safe. And even though we had travelled cross-country, they still would not be as safe as they could be until they entered the safe house we had prepared for them.  
Only, I  _really_  did not feel like offering them an explication on the how's and what's - and I sincerely doubted they would appreciate it.  
So in the end, I just ended up shoving the piece of paper under their noses, and enjoyed the shock and surprise on their faces when (to them) a house appeared out of nowhere.

It actually was quit funny, when they realized that they would be safeguarded by the thing they, apparently, hated the most.  
Perhaps I would have something of a fun time here, stuck with them. It looked as if just about anything I would do would annoy them - and I'd never been one to walk away from a chance like that.  
After all, they knew close to nothing, and I was going to have a  _blast_  letting them know just  _what_  they'd missed out on.

As we entered the house I just wondered: why  _didn't_  they know anything?


	7. New In Town

**Audrey's Point of View**

The house on the outskirts of town had never been very popular with the local people.  
It was inhabited only occasionally, and the inhabitants never seemed to last for more than one to two months.  
They either decided that " _this wasn't the place for them",_  they " _suddenly found out that their aunt was ill and in need of their help",_ or they just simply left without a word, never to be seen again.  
The few people that did manage to outlast the season, were soon watched with suspicion.  
After all, anybody who felt at home at a place like that, surely had to be the same as the house: mysterious, slightly scary, and just in general not entirely normal.  
Lately, however, nobody had seemed to be interested in renting it anymore.  
Perhaps its reputation had finally spread to the real estate agent, or perhaps the "charm of rural life", that used to bring people to the town in the first place, had finally worn off.  
Either way, the locals couldn't care less. After all, more important matters were always at hand: either Rick's cow had broken out again, or a fox had eaten one too many of Viola's chickens.

It was a small town, consisting mainly of two streets that crossed each other half way through.  
Most families had lived here for centuries, having the same jobs, and doing the same things.  
So, naturally, every single person living in one of the cottages, knew every single other person in those cottages.  
Because everybody knew everything about everybody, the people who had moved to the town the most recently, were generally considered the most interesting.  
However, as a rule, it didn't take all that long before all their little secrets, the things that made them 'them', were known by everybody in the town.  
My family was, up until yesterday, that 'newest family'.

Yesterday morning, though, one of the local kids was running through Main Street, shouting that he saw some strange people in the woods.  
The 'woods' started just where the village ended on the westside, went all the way around the abandoned house, and then went on for who-knows-how-many miles.  
It was also one of the most popular places for the children to play hide and seek and run around screaming, as well as for the teenagers to get some privacy.  
For people to turn up there, without any means of transport, as this boy described, was thus slightly out of the ordinary.

When it turned out that this strange group, consisting of 2 women, 2 men and a boy-almost-man, would be living in the abandoned house, the town reached its joint conclusion: this group of people was either up to something, or just really weird.  
After all, one men and the boy apparently resembled a pare of either rather small whales, or very large humans, accompanied by one man who could apparently not stop skipping, along with a women who bore a striking resemblence with a horse and another who alternated between laughing and looking absolutely outraged...  
Let's just hold it to the fact that it wasn't something one came across everyday in these parts of the country.  
The funniest part, apparently, was the fact that they were all struggling with an amount of luggage that suggested they were going to stay here for months.  
Struggling with the luggage, and falling over, under, and because of it, that is.

Personally, I was glad that our town had a new rarity to gossip about.  
Our family was not only the most recent, but also - probably - the most extravagant family in our town.  
Although we had been living here for the past 2 years, people still saw us as something curious.  
The fact that my eight year old sister was homeschooled, whereas I, or so they had been told, went to a posh boarding school for gifted children, did not help in the least.  
A lot of people felt that my parents thought that they, and so their children, were to good for the local schools - little did they know.

Luckily, I had finished school a year early - that's the good side of having a father who knows people - so that, when the Dark Lord's followers tried to recruit us, I was home.  
Nobody ever did notice that, to the magical world, an entire village seemed to have just disappeared from the map.  
Even if a wizard would have found the right exit from the main road, they would never have noticed our little town.  
They would've just remembered that they had an appointment elsewhere, or that they had seen something suspicious somewhere else, and then leave again.

Sometimes it really was fairly usefull, being a witch.  
If only because that way, we had noticed within the hour of their arival, that at least some of the people now inhabiting the abandoned house, were wizards and witches as well.


	8. Bored

**Dudley's Point Of View**

It'd been a week since we got here.

A whole week with no television, no videogames, not even a radio.

And I was so -  _so_  - terribly bored.

Because we were supposed to be here for security reasons, we weren't even allowed to go outside, which meant that I had no chance whatsoever of taking a walk to the village nearby and meeting new people.  
Perhaps they would've had a television.  
Perhaps they even would've known something to do during this long last month of summer.

Mum and dad still hadn't decided on whether or not I would go to a local school here, with a false name, or if mum would try and homeschool me.  
Mum apparently really wanted to homeschool me, she said it was a chance to get to spend some time with me, to get to know each other better, but dad, for some reason or another, thought that that wouldn't be a good idea at all.

He'd been getting a bet strange, lately, dad.  
Almost as if, just because we were forced to live with these people, whom he considered abnormal, he was striving for utter, absolute, sheer normality in every other aspect of his live, and thus ours as well.  
Apparently being home schooled was an option  _normal_  people oughtn't even consider, and so he had veto'ed my mum every time she dared propose it again.  
That didn't change the fact, though, that taking a false name when you entered a new school was probably not quite all that normal either.  
Then again, neither was changing schools at all, just because you were hiding for a serial-killer who was out to get your nephew.

I'd been wondering a lot, lately, why on earth my parents were so keen on appearing normal.  
I mean, I knew it had something to do with Harry, even if only partly, but surely there had to be more?  
The thing is, I always would have said that, no, my parents would never let their nephew, a boy they didn't even like, dictate their lives like that.

Lately, though, I wasn't all that sure of that anymore.

But anyway, I was bored.  
And apart from offering me way too much time to think on things like my parents' need for apparent normality, it also gave me a whole load of time to do absolutely nothing.  
And while, at home, I would have welcomed that excuse with open arms, here it just didn't seem good enough.

The witch and wizard who brought us here (for some reason I always forgot that little man's name, I did know the woman was called Hestia, though) took turns babysitting us.  
Well, it wasn't  _really_  babysitting, but it resembled it very closely sometimes.  
They told us when to do what, cooked our food, cleaned our house (it drove mum nuts that she couldn't do that, even at home it was the one chore she actually sort of liked doing), escorted us for our daily walk in the backyard, ...  
Then again, maybe it wasn't babysitting as much as it was prisonguarding.

I didn't actually know where the one  _off duty_  went to during those days, although I had come across them whispering a couple of times about guarding, fighting and giving shelter.  
But those vague, accidentally heard fragments, and the way they always seemed to be ready to fight, and looking forward to spending a day with us, even when they obviously didn't like us one bit, ...  
Those were the things that made this war real to me.  
Before that, it was all just something from a fairytale, a world which Harry might've belonged to, yes, but which never really seemed to reach out into our household.  
Now, though, it did.  
It seemed almost ever-present, and my mum's need for constant occupation, dad's ever-shortening patience and increasing spurts of anger and the fidgetiness of our guardians did nothing but increase the unease I seemed to be feeling all the time now.

For the first time in my life, I found myself missing an actual companion.  
Not girlfriend or anything, that wasn't it, but just, someone I could talk to about all these things.  
And occasionally, every so often, I would even wish that that person would be Harry.


	9. Changes

**Audrey's Point Of View**

There was so much quiet.

Ever since the ministry 'changed its course of action' about a month ago - honestly, who even believed that?  
The changes they made were just too radical to be anything but an obvious sign that a certain not-to-be-named person had gotten the power.  
Apart from the obvious fact that Minister Scrimgeour was killed while in office, the sudden appearance of 'Undesirable Number One' should have made it clear.

Honestly, I'd only known the Potter-boy for 2 years, and even then it was more from afar than anything else, but really? What was it about him that made people either love him or loathe him? And I wasn't just talking about my last year now, even though that was the year when it became the most obvious. In sixth year there was the thing were Gryffindor suddenly lost 150 points, so people just decided to blame him for everything that went wrong, and the year after I left there was the whole triwizard tournament thing. Even if people honestly believed he'd entered himself - why would he have done it? To get even more fame? Even more money? For the honour? He already had fame and money, and he didn't really seem to enjoy any of it. As for honour, he was a Potter, for Merlin's sake, he had about all the honour he could ever get just from that last name, never mind the fact that he seemed to be one of the few kids in the whole of Hogwarts that didn't appear to be craving attention for who knows what.

Anyway, it had been a month now, almost, since anyone had heard anything from him. Oh, sure, there were rumours enough  _about_  him, but if going to Hogwarts had taught me anything, it was without a doubt that rumours were usually far from true. The stories that were being spread about him, though, weren't the only thing that had made a 180° turn. If the fact that Severus Snape was suddenly promoted to Headmaster of Hogwarts, trumping professor McGonogal who was his senior both in age and experience, wasn't enough, the selection of the Carrows as teachers would have prove the point. They were probably two of the most known "imperiused victims" during the first war, and now they suddenly got to teach the new generation - not to mention, they just happened to teach Muggle Studies and Dark Arts? Please, the only way the ministry could be any more obvious, would be to persecute the muggleborns - oh wait, they already did!

To be honest, that was the part that stung most. Even though we were lucky, my grandparents weren't. My mum may have been a full pureblood, my dad's father was muggleborn. About a week into the new regime, he'd come by. Me and my sister were sent upstairs, of course, but they stayed in the kitchen, which just happened to be right above my sister's room. Hearing him tell my father he was glad that at least my grandmother didn't have to see this anymore was hard. Learning that he'd already sold everything but his wand and some clothes, and was just saying his farewells was even harder. It was scary to think that that could be necessary, to throw away everything you ever were, just to get a chance at actually staying alive long enough to maybe enjoy it again one day.

And yet again, in so many ways we were lucky. Because my dad managed to make the entire village unplottable over a year before they got the power, it couldn't be overturned anymore. And because the village really offered just about anything, we could easily live on as normal, except for the part where my dad couldn't go to work anymore. He used to work at Flourish & Blotts, as an adviser of sorts, deciding which books they should buy, and which they shouldn't. Because of the change of course though, the books that were allowed had become few and far between. What's more, the only people allowed to work in Diagon Alley at all, had to proove there lineage, and what with his father, he knew he would be lucky not to have his wand taken from him. My mom and me had the advantage of working in the French embassy, and even though we didn't do anything important there, we did earn enough to get food and other necessities.

The change of government also helped to explain why those people had suddenly turned up. By now, my dad had ensured that there were always one or two wizards or witches, and three muggles. It soon became obvious that they preferred to keep to themselves, only going into the village and even then not daring to talk to anyone. My father and mother agreed that they were probably fugitives, dad even going as far as to wonder whether they might be part of a witness protection program or something of the sorts. They were a family of three, although the man had only come out once, and managed to insult half the village in that one time. You could practically feel the relieve run through the village every time it became clear that he wasn't coming along with his wife. Said wife usually spend her time in either the coffee shop or the bookshop, reading only the paper and leaving again. The most interesting one was the son. Although many mothers in the village immediately labeled him 'bully', he usually kept to himself. True, he yelled at the bakers son once, but then again, everybody agreed that little boy never knew when to stop or when not to asking questions, so it might be assumed that it was not entirely unprovoked.

Either way, it was a strange feeling, to know that there were others so near by, and yet not be able to go talk to them, ask them what they thought about everything that was going on. We weren't even sure whether or not they realized we were magic. If they did, though, they never let it show, and took care to treat us just like everybody else. Still, I couldn't help but wonder how they ended up there, if they knew anything that we didn't, or even why they needed to hide - were they related to somebody I knew? I just couldn't help but think about it, seeing how as there wasn't exactly much else to do, even though I knew it wouldn't exactly lead to anything. It couldn't, after all.

Or, well, so I thought


	10. Finding A Home

**Petunia's Point of View**

There was nothing to do.

That was probably what I disliked most about this place.

There was absolutely nothing to do.

The village was beautiful, if you liked that type of slightly old-fashioned houses, surrounded by nothing but nature and filled with no one but people who apparently had know for longer than I cared to imagine.

Not that I could ever talk to them.

What was I to say anyway? Well, my sort-of-useless nephew is supposed to save the world, and even though there is no love - at all - wasted between us, we might be targeted by his fundamentalist, hooligan enemies on no other ground than our existence.

Oh yes, I could just imagine the reactions...

But it didn't matter anyway, did it now? Because I hardly ever got to leave the house anyway. And I never even knew when I could, because we only got told about it about 3 minutes before we were to leave. Vernon had yet to actually take the opportunity to explore the town, which I have to acknowledge I probably would have liked if I'd been here on a holiday. Living here, though, and knowing that the one time a week I got to go out would have to suffice for (probably) the next week, made it rather hard to really enjoy the views.

Usually, I would eventually find myself just enjoying a nice cup of coffee in the coffee shop which also functioned as bookstore, café and clubhouse, trying to hear as much about what was going on in the real world as I could.

It wasn't always pretty.

Actually, it wasn't pretty at all.

The authorities still had no idea what caused the sudden leap in murders and violent attacks, but, reading the newspaper, they just kept coming at you. Only a year ago, I probably would have ignored it, or just have felt that they had it coming, or just should have made sure that they weren't at that place at that time, but... Well, considering what I knew now, I couldn't help but wonder at every single message that relayed some sort of violent crime whether it might have been part of their world, of their war.

When I'd go back to the house - I just couldn't call it home, not with the way and the reason why we'd come there - I'd always feel safer, knowing that at least there, we were safe.

Ironic really, that the people we'd so long tried to avoid and deny access to our lifes, were now the ones we counted on to keep those very lifes. Even if the only reason why our lifes were in danger at all, were others of their kind.

In a way, I understood it a lot better now. Back when this had happened for the first time, I'd never really got it. I was just still so mad at Lilly, so angry that she'd let herself be taken away by them, away from me and from our parents, that I'd never really let her explain. And then, of course, we'd gotten stuck with the consequence of the war, but even then it was just a matter of one kind of freaks killing another kind of freaks because they didn't agree with each other on how freaky they wanted to be. Or at least, that's what it looked like to us - to me.

Now, though...

Now, it was hard not to realise what it was really about.

When whoever was guarding us would constantly be listening to their radio, hearing flards of what was going on, hearing the lists of people who'd been found dead, ...

When they would whisper to each other, as they changed guards, talking about who hadn't been seen for a while, talking about new legislations that were apparently being passed, ...

When I heard for the first time what the war was about, and when I realised that Lilly was seen in the same way as the Germans saw the Jews in World War II.

When I realised just what the boy was up against.

And I had to realise, I had to think about it, because there was nothing else to do.

I couldn't cook, or clean, or anything, because they'd brought some sort of creature with them which did all of that in not even half the time I'd have needed for it.

I couldn't invite people over, or go visit other people, because we were supposed to keep a low profile, be as inconspicuous as possible.

I couldn't complain to Dudley about it, because somehow he'd managed to find a place for himself here remarkably easily. He seemed to really look forward to the visits to the town, and even during the countless hours we were forced to spend by ourselves, he never seemed bored. He insisted that he would continue his education, and even in his free time, he'd sometimes read some of the books our guards left here when they left. They had moving pictures in them, and seemed to be about subjects that I didn't really want my Dudders to know more about, but I just couldn't bring myself to tell him to stop it, and do something else. At least he was using his time wisely.

Vernon, however. I really didn't know what to say to him anymore. He'd started out by just brooding in his room, somehow still convinced that all of this was one big trap, set to leave him penniless... Then he'd starting sulking around the house, never really doing anything, just looking at everything and everyone with a glare so full of contempt, that even I thought he was overreacting just a bit. When we were allowed to go to the village, he'd only go for half an hour, and then return, or flat out refuse to leave the house. I honestly didn't know what he was trying to achieve by that, I just knew that it didn't do a thing to help the atmosphere in the house, which was already terribly tense.

And recently... He just seemed to have changed. It was hard to pinpoint exactly how he'd changed, but it showed in everything that he did. Mostly though, it was the look in his eyes. There seemed to be a constant rage burning barely below the surface. He'd never been a really nice person, I knew he had a temper, but this - this constant feeling of him almost snapping... It scared me a bit. And the fact that he, my husband, scared me, was more frightening than I ever could have imagined.


End file.
